


take my life back

by LessonsFromMoths



Series: Haikyuu vs Zombies [3]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Best Friends, Companion Piece, Dissociation, Kind of lovers, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Protective Iwaizumi Hajime, Survival, i love them, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:41:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26805277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LessonsFromMoths/pseuds/LessonsFromMoths
Summary: They've always been like this. Iwaizumi has always lightened Tooru's load, and Tooru will never be able to pay him back. His own life means nothing when it's Iwaizumi's on the line.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Series: Haikyuu vs Zombies [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1928431
Comments: 10
Kudos: 52





	take my life back

**Author's Note:**

> fic song is [straight and narrow](https://youtu.be/sZg6UMpVQEU) by The Whiskey Charmers
> 
> This is my first attempt at writing Iwaoi, and I hope I don't disappoint too much. I read a lot of Iwaoi fics in anticipation for this companion piece and man oh man does this ship make my heart melt. 
> 
> This fic is a companion piece to my Bokuaka Zombie Apocalypse AU! It makes sense alone, but personally the context of the main fic adds a lot to it. Read it [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25286761/chapters/61307485)
> 
> Un-beta'd!

_1 month A.O. (After Outbreak)_

Tooru is still reeling from everything. He can’t seem to slow down long enough to take a deep breath, and Iwaizumi sure as hell isn’t going to let him. It makes Tooru have an equal amount of admiration and utter hatred for his best friend. 

“Pick up the pace, Shittykawa,” Iwaizumi says as they walk with the rest of their group, but even as he says it he gently pries one of their tents out of Tooru’s fingers, lightening his load. 

“Iwa--” he protests, but Iwaizumi just sends him a quick crooked smile, the same one he gave Tooru the first time they met when they were eight and Tooru begged his new neighbor to play volleyball with him, and looks forward towards their destination. 

He and Iwaizumi had joined this group almost a whole week ago, when things started getting really bad in Tokyo. The outbreak in Japan started in Tokyo and spread outwards, and he and Iwaizumi -- university students in Kawasaki far from their home in the Miyagi prefecture -- had quickly teamed up with some students from their university. Tooru doesn’t know them well, but Iwaizumi had Advanced English with one of them. 

Tooru isn’t sure where the rest of their group is headed (he tries not to talk to them much...he isn’t sure he’d be able to), but he and Iwaizumi are on their way back home to see if their families are okay. The roads in Tokyo are much too blocked to get any cars through, so they’re hoping that once they reach the outskirts of Tokyo that they’ll be able to find a car to drive the rest of the way. They had first estimated that it would take maybe a week to get home, but they’re quickly finding that Tokyo is much more dangerous than they first anticipated. The dead are everywhere, walking around and tearing into living people every corner you turn. It’s like a free-for-all, or some twisted carnival, one that makes Tooru wish that he could just blow his brains out.

If Iwaizumi weren’t here with him, he’s sure that he already would have. 

As it is, he knows that his dear Iwa-chan would kill him if he heard Tooru speak these thoughts aloud, though he suspects that Iwaizumi knows that he’s been thinking them. He doesn’t understand: the rest of their group, and even Iwaizumi, are taking the apocalypse quite well. They’re able to bash the brains of zombies and step over dead bodies and wipe someone else’s blood from their faces like it’s nothing. 

Tooru isn’t like them. Every dead body he sees is his mother or father or sister or nephew. Every zombie is a classmate or a childhood friend. Every blood spatter brings them one step closer to losing their collective humanity. He can’t lie, he’s kind of losing his goddamn mind.

“There, quick!” One of their group yells out, and they all duck into the nearest building as a small group of ugly zombies -- rotters, one of their group calls them -- spot them. A few of the rotters are too decomposed to chase after them properly, but those are ones that died early on in the outbreak. Most of the rotters are fresh, were probably living humans just the day before and are now reduced to ugly, horrible things that live for nothing except to eat anything that moves. 

“This is our place, get out!” They hear when they enter the building, and Iwaizumi is immediately placing his body between Tooru and the newcomers. They don’t even have a chance to respond when one of them shoots a gun _(a gun!? Where the fuck did they get that!?)_ at Iwa-chan’s classmate. She drops to the ground immediately, blood pouring from her chest. Her blood is entrancing as it spills elegantly from her wound as he chest hitches. There are yells and gasps of disbelief on both sides, and Tooru’s mind loses track of any semblance of understanding. Someone is gripping his wrist and yanking him out of the building, and then there’s more screaming: the rotters are on top of them, nowhere is safe. 

The hand leaves his wrist and he sinks to the ground as he watches Iwaizumi attack them with a sturdy cane he took from one of the office buildings back on campus. Other members of their group aren’t faring as well as some, and Tooru watches in horror as a rotter tears into another one of their group’s necks, tendon and muscle and skin tearing and crunching. There’s an awful snapping sound that accompanies the tendons being forcefully broken, and then the bloodcurdling scream of the dying group member overpowers the sounds of munching. 

Tooru wants to squeeze his eyes shut and forget that any of this is happening, but Iwaizumi grabs his hand and pulls him away from it. “Come on, Crappykawa,” he says, and the nickname jolts Tooru back to the present. 

“Where are we going?” He asks. His voice is a lot smaller than he means it to be. 

“Anywhere but here.” Iwaizumi leads them through the maze of buildings and cars, often stopping and sprinting the way they just came to avoid more rotters. Tooru spares a glance behind them and realizes that no one else is following them: their group is spread to the winds, either dead or fighting for their own life. 

Iwaizumi finally stops in the middle of a bridge. It’s high enough that they can spot anything coming towards them, and they sit in the back of a large semi truck that’s overturned. The back was unlocked in its tumble, its contents just boxes of electronics that aren’t of any use anymore. 

“You didn’t get scratched, did you?” Iwaizumi is immediately crouched over Tooru, checking his arms and neck and face for any abrasions. 

“I...I froze, Iwa-chan,” Tooru whispers, his hands shaking. Iwaizumi gently takes them in his, holding them so tightly that they can’t shake anymore. “I don’t even know what happened.” 

Iwaizumi’s face is so tender, so open. It hurts to look at. “You dissociated, Tooru,” he says gently. Tooru looks back up at him, a cold spark of vulnerability jolting through his brain. But he hasn’t done that since-- “It’s been a while. Not since middle school,” Iwaizumi finishes his thought. He’s always been good at voicing Tooru’s concerns. “But it’s going to be fine. We’re gonna work through this, okay?”

“What if you had gotten hurt?” Tooru whispers. He can’t bring his voice above that. He can’t calm his racing mind. Iwaizumi could’ve died, and Tooru would have just watched it happen with an apathetic look on his face. He would have probably let a rotter come at him and kill him. _Iwaizumi could’ve died,_ and Tooru wouldn’t have done a damn thing. Tooru’s always known that he’s defective, but he never thought that he could be this weak. 

“Hey, hey,” Iwaizumi grabs Tooru’s face in his hands. Without Iwaizumi’s to stop them, his hands start shaking again. “I didn’t. And we’ll just have to talk about it. That helped in middle school, right? When you talked about the bad things?” Iwaizumi is using his Patient Care voice, one that Tooru would make fun of whenever he saw Iwaizumi at his internship with the personal trainers. The first time he heard that voice was when they were small and Tooru dissociated in front of Iwaizumi for the first time. Iwaizumi had held his hand in the middle of gym class and spoken to him in that tone, soft and sweet and understanding. Even when the other kids had laughed at them for holding hands, it was Iwaizumi who brought him back to the present, who reminded him that he was real. 

He’s still doing it, even now. 

Tooru nods, a few tears slipping out of his eyes. “Don’t cry, Tooru, don’t cry,” Iwaizumi wipes at Tooru’s eyes, making the tears disappear.

“What if I can’t get out of it? What if you die?” He chokes out. 

“I won’t die,” Iwaizumi says firmly. “And we’re going to work at it, okay? We’re going to make sure that you can always find a way back to the present. Like a back door.”

“A back door?”

Iwaizumi nods. “That way, no matter how deep you go, you’ll always be able to find your way back to me. Think you can do that?” Tooru nods slowly, still a bit confused. “So right now, I want you to imagine a back door, okay? It’s always there, in the edge of your mind. Can you see it?” When Tooru closes his eyes to imagine it, he’s struck with the sudden realization that Iwaizumi is using one of the techniques Tooru’s therapist taught him years and years ago. Give himself a way out, and from there feel your feet on the ground, your hands in the air. Be in the moment.

“It’s right there,” Tooru whispers. The metal ground of the semi is beneath his feet. His hands are pressed against the ground. He’s here. He’s real, and so is Iwaizumi. Iwaizumi might be the only real thing he’s ever known outside of himself, and even then Tooru is convinced that Oikawa Tooru isn’t real most of the time.

“Good.” When Tooru opens his eyes, Iwaizumi is smiling tenderly at him. “Whenever you go far away, you can always find your way back as long as that door is there, okay? You can always come back to me.”

“Okay,” Tooru whispers. 

When people would see the two of them, they would see Oikawa, pretty, confident Oikawa, and his ever-present shadow and conscience, Iwaizumi. They would see a man and his sidekick, a boy and his best friend, two peas in a proverbial pod. What they don’t understand is what goes on behind the cocky smiles and self-assured words. Behind Oikawa Tooru’s mask is just Tooru, someone who loves Iwaizumi and relies on him unwaveringly. They’ve always been like that: each other’s emotional support at every turn. Tooru always figured that he and Iwaizumi would be together forever, no matter what. They would be best friends until they were old and grey, never living another day without the other. 

He still figures that they won’t be separated, only now he sees the threat of their separation looming, and he wants to do anything he can to prolong it. Iwaizumi is made to make it in this weird, new world; Tooru is very obviously not. One day Tooru will fall so far behind that Iwaizumi will have to make a decision to leave him or keep going, and Tooru is determined to make the decision for his friend. Iwaizumi will live until he’s old and grey, even if it kills Tooru. 

“The head, right?” Tooru holds an emergency fire axe in his hand as he stares unblinkingly at the rotter writhing on the ground, trapped under a car. It’s been a few days since he and Iwaizumi went off on their own, and when they returned to the place where their group split to look for survivors, they only found the dead. 

“They only stop moving when you hit them in the head,” Iwaizumi confirms. 

Tooru glances back at Iwa-chan, who merely nods him forward. He looks back at the trapped rotter and squeezes his eyes shut for a quick moment, imagining that he has to kill this rotter before it hurts Iwaizumi, then clenches his jaw and heaves the axe at its head with a short cry. The resulting spatter covers his arms, but he merely forges on, hitting it again and again until he feels hands on his biceps, stopping him from another downswing. 

“Tooru,” he says, and Tooru drops the axe, curling into Iwaizumi’s arms and dissolving into a fit of tears. “You did it, Tooru,” Iwaizumi soothes him as he cries into his best friend’s neck. He wants to apologize for being so weak. Wants to tell Iwaizumi to leave him here, that he’d have a much better chance of survival without Tooru here to drag him down. He wants to tell him how much he loves him, how alone he feels even in Iwaizumi’s arms, how sorry he is that he isn’t stronger. 

“I know,” Iwaizumi whispers, gripping him tighter and rubbing a hand up and down his back soothingly. “I know, and it’s okay. I’m glad you’re here with me.” 

Tooru only cries harder, but it only lasts a few more minutes before he pulls away, wiping at his dripping eyes and nose with his sleeve. “Can we get out of here?” He asks. 

“Of course. Further north?” Iwaizumi asks, picking up the axe from the ground and holding it out for Tooru to take. He does, wincing at the wet blood on the handle. It’s slick and sticky, leaving him with a bad taste in his mouth. 

“I’m following you, Iwa-chan.” The nickname makes the corners of Iwaizumi’s mouth turn up, and Tooru realizes that this is the most that he’s sounded like his old self in weeks. He resolves to try harder to keep himself together so that Iwaizumi won’t worry so much. Worrying about Tooru might get Iwa-chan killed, and he won’t let that happen. 

Tooru can’t let that happen. It might kill him, too. 

“What’s that?” Tooru asks a few hours later, pointing at what looks like a sad attempt at mega-sized jenga. 

“I think...someone’s trying to make a wall?” 

Tooru and Iwaizumi trade glances. They’re low on supplies. They know how the future looks for them if they don’t figure something out soon, and this might be the sign from the universe they’ve been hoping for. “Should we check it out?” 

“Oi you!” Someone yells from atop the jenga wall. They startle, heads snapping up. The person sitting up there is an old man with crafty eyes, and he assesses them clinically. “Can you fight?”

“Yes, sir!” Iwaizumi yells back. 

The old man looks at them, contemplating. “Go on in and speak to Keishin! He’ll find you a job.” 

Tooru and Iwaizumi share a look. Tooru shrugs. 

“Detour?” Iwaizumi suggests. To anyone else, his expression is stoic and unmoving, an iceberg that stubbornly refuses to melt. To Tooru, it’s open and soft, always analyzing but also ready for anything. Gods, Tooru loves Iwaizumi’s expressions more than words can describe: it’s like they’re all tailored just for him, only decipherable if your name is Oikawa Tooru. He thinks that it’s Iwaizumi’s expressions that he fell in love with first. 

Tooru weighs their options. Can they make it back home on scavenging alone? He doubts it. Staying here for a while will increase their (Iwaizumi’s) chances of survival. He knows that his friend will follow him no matter what he chooses: Iwaizumi is trusting him to make this decision. He refuses to let him down. “Let’s try it.” 

The old man waves to them as they cross the threshold of the jenga wall. “Welcome to Karasuno, boys!”

**Author's Note:**

> \-- My roommate has been helping me plan out the main sequel fic, which I'm expecting to release in the first month or so of 2021! In the meantime, please keep requesting companion pieces! They help a lot with world-building, character motivation, and just giving me practice writing characters I've never written!
> 
> \-- Ukatake companion piece is next, I think! Expect quite a few familiar crow faces in that one :)
> 
> \-- Anyways y'all are the best and my reason for writing cool things like this. ALSO THE NEW SEASON OF HQ IS RELEASING AS WE SPEAK I AM NOT OKAY i just love seeing the manga animated it brings me so much joy.
> 
> Scream with me about HQ and Tanaka Ryuunosuke on my [tumblr](https://lessons-from-moths.tumblr.com/)


End file.
